Dragons Live Forever, But Not So Little Boys
by WeatherWatch
Summary: She should have seen it coming. -CrossGen-


**Disclaimer: I gain nothing but satisfaction and perchance a few kind reviews (if I'm lucky). Title appropriated from 'Puff the Magic Dragon' by The Seekers. Scents in James' cologne are some of those found in the 'Intimately Beckham: For Him' fragrance. Hehe. **

**A/N: I've wanted to write a Hermione/NextGen for absolutely ages, but never got around to it while I actually had inspiration… Hopefully the waiting has paid off now though, and you can enjoy a little bit of confusion between James Sirius (he beat Teddy Lupin by a hair to star in this) and Hermione. They aren't related by blood (I feel the need to point that out) but it is still, admittedly, kind of a weird pairing… though Hermione gets paired off with all sorts, so it's not that bizarre, really, at the end of all things.**

**Oh, also: if you don't like the pairing in the overview don't read it. It's very simple. Critique the writing, not the ship.  
>Anyway, enjoy!<strong>

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><p>"<strong>dragons live forever, but not so little boys"<br>**_poverty of language compels the use of the same words  
>for things that are not the same<br>/_Grotius_/  
><em>**-:-  
>James SiriusHermione**

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><p>"I love you."<p>

She should have seen it coming, should've heard the difference in his tenor as he moved from the grateful five year old, joyous at obtaining a much desired gift, to a difficult-haired twelve year old, his voice filled with fondness and a world-weariness that exists only between a young generation and its elders, and nineteen, where the sincerity of his words in the wake of Ron's abandonment should have been alarm enough.

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><p>"I love you."<p>

It's four thirty-eight, according to the oven clock; four thirty-seven by the microwave; and four thirty-two by the ancient cuckoo clock she had salvaged from a white elephant stall at Rose and Hugo's primary school so many years ago. The water has boiled, and is becoming tepid as it rests in the kettle, two charmingly decorated cups on saucers waiting patiently to be filled, unaffected by the long silence that has fallen over the kitchen.

Hermione Granger, formerly Hermione Weasley, stands with her face to the window, the view of her neatly trimmed and admittedly gorgeous hedges and rosebushes struggling, for once, to calm her erratic breath and rapidly beating heart (she's sure the tattoo it is playing audible to the twenty-four year old boy standing on the opposite side of the room). Her bare feet are cool against the wooden flooring, and her hands clench a blue gingham tea towel, scrunching it up tightly; it's a stark contrast to the chic, navy coloured two-piece skirt suit that hugs her figure and reveals her for the powerful Ministry executive she is, and it seems that as her image is not quite complete, so is her usually unhindered flow of words; Hermione is silent, letting the echo of those three words linger unacknowledged but for her stiff stance and pointed lack of reply.

The ball is in her court at the moment (though Hermione feels that it is anywhere but), so she makes her decision. She moves her hand jerkily to pour out the tea, continuing as best she can as if nothing out of the ordinary has occurred. The tea towel is discarded on the bench and Hermione turns, her brown eyes deftly avoiding their match across the room, and asks instead, grateful that her voice doesn't crack at all, "Fetch the sugar, will you?"

Her companion doesn't move immediately – she can feel his eyes still trained on her – but then he swiftly gathers the quaint ceramic sugar pot from the cupboard on his left, deposits it on the table, and in the same movement corners her against the marble counter-top.

"You can't ignore it," he tells her, a gentle warning carried in the words. "You can't ignore me."

Hermione gathers her courage and looks into the tall boy's face. His brown eyes might have been inherited from his mother, rather than his grandmother, but his hair is definitely his father's line. It's almost as unmanageable as hers, scruffy and dark with a tendency to look like he's spent four hours ruffling it with his hands.

"James, don't," she pleads weakly. He smells of sandalwood and sage and his broad shoulders and closeness is wreaking havoc on her senses; she can't concentrate with him standing so close. What happened to the Quidditch-mad seven year old who'd suffer only the quickest kiss from his aunt before scarpering away to a game of pick-up Quidditch with his cousins? What happened to the nine year old who was obsessed with dragons and Charlie and escaping to the wilds of Romania as soon as he finished Hogwarts?

"I love you," James Sirius Potter reiterates, and there might be a hint of apology in those words this time, but she can't really tell because he's inching slowly closer and suddenly all coherency is going out the window. "I've _always_ loved you."

"But you _can't_!" she whispers, pressing herself back as far as she can go (because elsewise she'll be leaning in towards him and she absolutely _musn't_). "I'm the mother of your _cousins_. You _can't_!"

He doesn't agree, just crowds her, his arms forming a barricade, and presses his lower body intimately against her own, slowly dipping his head to the slender column of her neck. Breath is drawn hastily in through barely parted lips and Hermione's eyes flicker shut involuntarily.

"Yes," he breathes, "I can."

She loathes herself when the soft puff of his breath on her skin ignites a flame of lust deep inside her, her body unashamedly betraying her rational mind which is screaming for her to flee, flee, flee -

But it has been so long since she and Ron… and they aren't related… and James is well over-age… and _she shouldn't even be trying to rationalise or justify what's happening right now - he's her nephew _(_even if it is only by marriage_)_!_ but she's lost when his soft lips reach a point that isn't quite neck but still isn't jaw, and she releases an barely audible sigh and feels James smirk against her tingling flesh.

Then, in a moment that completely rejects her Gryffindor values, she gives in completely.

To temptation, to lust, to sensation; she stops trying to fight the reaction of her body and begins to respond.

The counter digs into her back, and one of James' hands has abandoned it post as a barrier to tangle in the hair at the nape of her neck, and all Hermione knows at this moment is touch, taste and scent. It's as if the whole world has fallen into the loudest silence possible, and with her eyes closed she's enveloped by the remaining three senses.

James' lips draw along the fine cut of her jaw and then rise to meet the soft pink of her own mouth, still partly open, and Hermione vaguely remembers through the haze of pleasure that James is, and has always been, an opportunist.

Legs weak, lips meet, breath mingles, tongues dance, teeth clash; and the whole world realigns with James Sirius Potter as its centre.

And when they're lying in the bed she once shared with Ron, the sheets a mess and their limbs entwined, she feels like a thief, a cradle-snatcher, as she recalls the boy he used to be, the one she babysat with her husband beside her own two children (his _cousins_), and feels her heart break with the thinnest of hairline fractures as she reminds herself that it absolutely cannot go on.

James is asleep, sprawled out just like his father, one arm possessively wrapped around her waist, just below her breasts, but slumber will not come for Hermione. She fidgets and sighs and tries to slip out of his grasp, but the movement just causes him to tug her closer and tighten his grip, burying his face in her hair, and her horrid, traitorous body _enjoys_ it; enjoys the feeling of being treasured by a man so much that she discontinues her escape plans and rests instead, cradled in his arms.

There will be time a-plenty to think things through tomorrow, she tells herself as her consciousness slowly wavers.

Tonight is one night where she will allow herself to forget everything.

Even herself.

**End.**

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